


Magical Thinking

by JungMichan



Series: Splintered Light: EXO Canon-AU Oneshots [6]
Category: EXO (Band), K-pop
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Anxiety, Canon Compliant, Do Kyungsoo | D.O-centric, Friendship, Minor Kim Junmyeon | Suho/Oh Sehun, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:28:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28534428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JungMichan/pseuds/JungMichan
Summary: Why did he think that? He shouldn’t think things like that. What if it comes true? What if it comes true because Kyungsoo thought of it, thought it into being? What if...
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Do Kyungsoo | D.O, Do Kyungsoo | D.O/Everyone, Do Kyungsoo | D.O/Kim Minseok | Xiumin
Series: Splintered Light: EXO Canon-AU Oneshots [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2166735
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	Magical Thinking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xln71](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xln71/gifts).



> Caution: Detailed depiction of anxiety and intrusive thoughts, character injuries/illnesses (nothing permanent, don't worry)
> 
> Written for xln71, who wondered what Kyungsoo thinks about when he seems to drift off in interviews. Thank you for the amazing prompt darling, and I am sorry that a) it took me 3 months to get to it (but I thought about it a LOT and when I did get to it I wrote the whole thing in a day, go figure) and b) the idea ran away with me and turned into something rather (read: very) angsty. I’m sure you didn’t expect this when you prompted, but this is how I flow ;) I do hope you enjoy it all the same~

Kyungsoo stands in his place in the back row of the interview formation and tries to focus on the questions. He’s often told to stand, rather than sit. Something to do with the height distributions he’s never quite worked out. He’s at the far end of the back row of four, furthest from the interviewer, with Jongdae standing on his left and Jongin sitting on a yellow swivel stool in front of him. It’s hard being furthest from the interviewer. He can’t really see her expressions since the agency won’t let him wear his glasses, and it makes it a lot harder to stay present when he can’t see the person talking. It isn’t as much of an issue as it could be, though. With eight people available to answer questions, Kyungsoo isn’t often called on, especially with Junmyeon doing his best to be a good leader and answer difficult questions coherently, and Baekhyun also doing so, with much more natural grace.

Baekhyun is sitting in the front row, closest to the interviewer. They usually place him close. Interviewers love Baekhyun. Baekhyun just switches on in front of a camera or on stage. Kyungsoo thinks it’s very fitting that the company gave Baekhyun the superpower of light. He wonders if they did it on purpose. Baekhyun really is like a light-bulb, able to turn on this glow, this magnetic attraction at a moment’s notice. It fascinates Kyungsoo, how Baekhyun gives and gives, light and energy flowing out of him, until all the cameras are turned off and people’s eyes turn away.

When nobody is looking, Baekhyun goes tired. Baekhyun goes dim. Baekhyun’s internal bulb goes out. Baekhyun hides himself away, alone in his dark bedroom. Kyungsoo knows not to bother Baekhyun then. Everyone knows. Because Baekhyun can’t help but switch on when people come to him, even if it’s only Jongdae or Chanyeol glancing in to check he’s okay. They can all sense that sometimes Baekhyun needs to keep just a little bit of light for himself.

Kyungsoo watches the light play off Baekhyun’s new golden-blonde hair, still somehow soft and sleek despite how many times it’s been bleached and dyed, and wonders if Baekhyun will one day run out of light to give.

The idea makes him shiver on the inside. He chews the inside of his lip as anxiety takes root in his chest. It grows, in a crawling, creeping way, along his ribs and down into the pit of his stomach, branches up to fill his throat with soft unfurling leaves. Why did he think that? He shouldn’t think things like that. What if it comes true? What if it comes true because Kyungsoo thought of it, thought it into being? What if...

“D.O-ssi?”

It takes Kyungsoo a second too long to recognize his stage name and attach it to himself.

“Yes?” he says, as smoothly as he can, looking in the general direction of her blurred face and making sure he doesn’t accidentally glare at her by way of trying to see her. In front of him, Jongin shifts on his seat, and he catches the concerned glance Jongdae sends him from the corner of his eye. Perhaps the interviewer has already spoken to him and he missed it.

Anxiety crowds his ribcage. He thinks he can feel thorns growing, poking at his soft insides.

Jongdae’s hand brushes his, and a tiny spark of static passes between their skin on contact. Kyungsoo’s fingertips sting, and he remembers it’s alright. This isn’t a live interview. If something he did was too off to be broadcast, the company will ensure it’s edited out.

“Yes, D.O-ssi. What are your thoughts on the concept of EXO’s new mini-album, Compulsion?”

Kyungsoo knows the answer to this question. It’s one of the ones they practiced earlier. He smiles and recites his answer smoothly, with just enough hesitation between the words that it will seem spontaneous and not rote-learned. He knows how to do this, how to act, and beside him, he senses Jongdae relax. He hadn’t even realised Jongdae had tensed up until that minute softening of the shoulders, that tiny breath of released air.

Jongin, though, is restless in front of him, fidgeting, getting antsy. He can never sit still for long. The interviewer moves on, back to Baekhyun and his shine. Baekhyun’s shine makes him beautiful. Makes him stand out, makes him glow. People say Kyungsoo is handsome. He usually makes the top three when they’re forced to do those awful face-ranking games. But Kyungsoo knows that Baekhyun’s shine makes him _more_ , somehow, than any of them.

Kyungsoo is finding it hard to stay focused. Baekhyun’s laughter spills out and sparkles, glitters in the air, and he smiles automatically while the others laugh. In front of him, Jongin’s giggles carry the slightest edge of hysteria. He’s spinning on his stool from side to side in front of Kyungsoo while his fingers fiddle rapidly with a part of his costume. His body begins to shake as he bounces his leg. Who thought it was a good idea to sit Jongin on a seat that moves? His restlessness is tangible, trying to burst out of him. Kyungsoo feels it feed into his own anxiety, and the crowded feeling in his chest grows denser. It puts out vines and twines them through the cage of his ribs and down into his arms and legs.

He puts a steadying hand on Jongin’s shoulder. Beneath him, Jongin quiets. He knows the meaning of the touch. Be still, Jongin. Be calm. Kyungsoo is surprised Junmyeon hasn’t already stilled him with a palm on his thigh.

But no. He remembers now. Junmyeon and Sehun had gone on an interview last month and touched each other so often that the host had told them to just come out right there and then, boost the show’s view count. A joke, it was. Funny. Everyone had laughed and laughed.

Junmyeon had cried, later, after the resulting meeting with the PR team. Kyungsoo had seen the water gathering in his eyes until it overflowed and spilled down his cheeks, quietly, without any sobbing. He’d seen the water gleaming off his face in the dark van as they’d been driven home. Junmyeon had turned his face to the window, not wanting anyone to know. So Kyungsoo had pretended not to know. But he’d wondered, then, and he wonders now, at how much water there was inside Junmyeon, and how quietly it had overflowed, and how it had just kept coming, not so much individual tears as a continuous flow. Kyungsoo had never seen someone cry in that way before.

He wonders if Junmyeon might drown in all that water, one day.

Jongin shifts beneath his palm, and Kyungsoo is drawn back. Another bad thought. Another bad creation. Kyungsoo has to stop this. Kyungsoo has to stop... _this._

Jongin lifts a hand across his chest and places it, warm, over Kyungsoo’s, holding it to his shoulder. Jongin’s hand is large, skin soft. His fingers are beautiful. Slender. Jongin has dancer’s hands. Jongin’s index finger taps the back of Kyungsoo’s hand, gentle, rhythmic, even as Jongin laughs at something else unheard Baekhyun has said.

Kyungsoo doesn’t quite find his way to his smile this time. He is absorbed in the gentle tapping of Jongin’s finger against his hand. He focuses on the tap, tap, tap. It keeps him from creating bad thoughts. It keeps him from being consumed.

***

There is a place in the dorm that bothers Kyungsoo. He doesn’t know why, but it does. There’s a line where the wooden floor of the hallway their bedrooms are on meets the slightly different wooden floor of the lounge. Kyungsoo doesn’t know why the floor was designed like that, but it bothers him. He knows it doesn’t make sense, but it feels like if he steps on that line, something bad will happen.

So Kyungsoo always makes sure to step over that bad line. He watches for it as he comes down the hallway towards the kitchen and makes sure his toes never get close. He takes an extra big step, so that there’s no chance of accidentally touching it. He’d like to jump, but he thinks that would be too obvious. Someone might notice him always jumping over the bad line, and Kyungsoo wouldn’t be able to explain, because it doesn’t make sense, not even to him.

He just knows that he must not step on that line.

He steps, careful, high, over the bad line and walks quietly down the dim hallway towards his bedroom at the end, carrying his glass of water in his hand. The sounds of Sehun and Chanyeol playing on the Xbox in the living room follow him down. He pauses when he passes Baekhyun’s door, glancing automatically down to see if the light is shining out from under the door.

It is not.

Baekhyun is in the dark again.

Kyungsoo stands outside Baekhyun’s door as the bad thought from the interview earlier returns to him. He stands still while anxiety bursts into bloom in his chest. This is Kyungsoo’s fault. Kyungsoo thought of it. Kyungsoo brought it into being, and now Baekhyun is low again. Bright, beautiful Baekhyun is all alone in the dark, where Kyungsoo cannot reach him. Kyungsoo can never reach Baekhyun in his darkness, because Baekhyun, when he sees Kyungsoo’s worry, will turn on his light again. And what if Kyungsoo uses up the very last little bit of Baekhyun’s light? What then?

Kyungsoo turns and goes back to the bad line where the hallway meets the door. He looks at it. Stepping over the bad line stops bad things from happening. He knows it’s stupid, he knows it doesn’t make sense, but thorns of fear are trying to spike out of his chest and through his skin, and he needs to help Baekhyun, and he needs to make it stop.

Kyungsoo lifts his foot and takes a giant step over the bad line. The worry-thorns retreat a little, stop poking quite as hard, so Kyungsoo turns and steps back over the line again, back into the hallway.

The worry-thorns retreat a little more.

Kyungsoo counts as he turns and steps again. Three, four, five, six steps. He’s on the hallway side again. The worry-thorns are gone. Cool relief settles in their place. Six steps over the bad line is enough.

Kyungsoo turns away from the line and walks past Baekhyun’s closed door, knowing that Baekhyun will be okay now.

***

In the morning, while everyone is busy brushing their teeth or eating breakfast or finding their own clothes in the exploding mess of the shared closet, when nobody is in the hall for a minute or two, Kyungsoo finds time to step over the bad line six times. The little anxiety-prickles that had grown back overnight retreat again, so Kyungsoo walks into the kitchen. Baekhyun is sitting at the table, eating a carefully-measured metric cup of blueberries from a bowl with chopsticks, one by one. He looks up at Kyungsoo’s footsteps, and the morning sunlight spilling in from the window behind Baekhyun catches in his golden hair, still ruffled from sleep. A white-gold aureole around his head. He smiles at Kyungsoo, gentle-bright. Oh, how Baekhyun shines.

“Kyungsoo-ya,” he says by way of greeting. The light in his voice plays over Kyungsoo’s skin, and something soft inside Kyungsoo opens up its petals and blooms.

He knows, now, how to keep Baekhyun safe.

***

Two days later, a resounding crash midway through their choreo for one of the new mini-album songs, _Ritual_ , makes everyone jump and turn to look for the source. Chanyeol is sprawled on the floor, a tangle of long, long limbs and baggy black t-shirt and dance pants. It’s not the first time Chanyeol has slipped and fallen during dance practice, not by any means. He’s just so tall that his limbs sometimes seem to escape from his control. But it is the first time that, instead of laughing or groaning or cursing or apologizing as he picks himself up so they can keep going, Chanyeol just stays lying there. Motionless. Unmoving.

The EDM beats of _Ritual_ vibrate around the dance studio, bounce off the mirrors and the ceiling and the sprung wooden floor, and seven sweaty members of EXO stare at Chanyeol and wait for him to get up. It takes several beats of confused stillness before someone - Sehun - breaks the frozen tableau and moves to Chanyeol’s side.

“Hyung,” says Sehun. He crouches. Puts a hand on Chanyeol’s shoulder. Shakes it.

The music for _Ritual_ ends, and as if the ending of the music breaks some spell holding everyone else in place, they flock towards Chanyeol, gather round, look down.

“Don’t fuck around, hyung,” Sehun says. “It’s not funny.” There’s something cracking in his voice, still raw from his recent escape from adolescence, and it sounds like pain, Kyungsoo thinks, like the embodiment of pain embedded into the grating of a young man’s breaking voice, reverberant in the suddenly silent studio.

Minseok crouches on Chanyeol’s other side, opposite Sehun. He lifts Chanyeol’s limp wrist up high and lets it go. It falls back to the studio floor with a painful-sounding thud.

“He’s not messing with us,” Minseok says, looking up, and in his eyes Kyungsoo sees the way fear turns his blood, his bones to ice. “He passed out.”

Kyungsoo takes a step back. Then another. Too many people around Chanyeol. Too many voices questioning each other. Junmyeon is on his phone, calling the manager. Jongdae has his hand on Chanyeol’s forehead. “He’s burning up,” he says.

Baekhyun runs for water. Kyungsoo, still backing up, is stopped when his back hits the wall mirror and he has nowhere left to go. He watches Baekhyun drip water from his bottle onto Chanyeol’s forehead. _He’s burning up_ , says Jongdae’s voice, on replay in his head. _He’s burning, burning, burning up_.

Kyungsoo thinks of Chanyeol. He thinks of Chanyeol burning. There’s always been fire in Chanyeol. He glows, a bit like Baekhyun, but in a different way. Chanyeol is exuberant, effusive, enthusiastic. Full of friendly warmth, like embers. Full of passion, like tongues of flame leaping high, high to touch the stars. There’s always heat inside Chanyeol. And now there’s fever. Burning.

What if it’s too much? What if Chanyeol’s burning can’t be stopped? What then?

A bad thought. Kyungsoo has thought another bad thought. He cannot stop it. He is helpless. Fear crawls through him. Chanyeol stirs and groans on the floor, mumbles something in response to Baekhyun calling his name. He’s coming around, but Kyungsoo’s fear doesn’t fade. Chanyeol is burning up.

Kyungsoo remembers Baekhyun. Kyungsoo stepped over the bad line for him, and Baekhyun’s light came back. But he didn’t do anything for Chanyeol.

The manager appears, along with several more staff. Kyungsoo leans against the mirror and watches them kneel down and talk to Chanyeol. He can’t hear what they’re saying through the crackle of flames in his ears. Chanyeol is burning. Kyungsoo has thought this into being and he has to stop it. The bad line is at home, and he can’t get to it, but there’s another crack here, just beside Kyungsoo, where he leans against the wall mirror. A line where two slabs of mirror join, stretching floor to ceiling. Kyungsoo looks at the line. It’s a division where no division should be. The mirror should be all one. It’s a bad line, just like the line between the hallway and the lounge where the floor changes but shouldn’t.

Kyungsoo turns around and presses his palm flat to the mirror just beside the crack. He lifts his hand again, sees the slight smear on the glass his hot hand has left behind. He lifts it high over the bad line and places it flat against the mirror on the other side.

_One._

The tearing fear in his chest recedes, just a little.

Kyungsoo jumps his hand back.

_Two._

He hears Chanyeol’s voice from the floor behind him, deep tones unmistakable, even weak and sounding groggy. But he is awake. He is speaking.

It is working.

 _Three._ Kyungsoo focuses on his hand. Inside him the anxiety-thorns retract and curl back in.

Four, five, six times Kyungsoo moves his hand, and the reflection the mirror shows him is of Chanyeol sitting up, helped by the staff, face pale, eyes dazed and fever-bright. Six is not enough. Kyungsoo needs to do more.

Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. The rhythmic motion of his hand goes back and forth, back and forth. It absorbs him. Enchants him. Eleven, twelve, and Chanyeol is being helped to his feet, leaning heavily on the tallest two staff members. Kyungsoo hears the words _fever, fluids, rest._ The staff help Chanyeol out at number fifteen, and Kyungsoo’s hand goes still, flat against the mirror, and the big studio goes quiet, filled only with shocked, worried members and Kyungsoo.

“Kyungsoo?”

Baekhyun’s voice. Kyungsoo turns his head. Worry shines in Baekhyun’s eyes as he looks at Kyungsoo, resting both forehead and palm against the mirror as he is. Baekhyun is worried, but Baekhyun still shines.

“He’ll be okay,” Kyungsoo tells Baekhyun, because he hates to see the worried shine. He wants to tell Baekhyun how he knows, but it would sound crazy, so he doesn’t.

“Are you okay, though?” asks Baekhyun. The worry shine hasn’t faded.

Kyungsoo takes his head and palm off the mirror and turns back towards the room. Sehun is crying. Junmyeon is hugging him. Kyungsoo hopes Sehun’s tears don’t make Junmyeon overflow. Junmyeon already has too much water in him.

“Yes, hyung,” he says. “I’m okay.”

***

Baekhyun’s light is steady, now, and Chanyeol has stopped burning. Kyungsoo has been keeping Baekhyun safe by stepping over the bad line six times. He has been keeping Chanyeol safe by jumping his hand over the mirror line fifteen times. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do about Chanyeol if there’s a day he can’t go to the studio, and what he’ll do about both of them when they go on tour. It worries him a lot, but not as much as the immediate problem, which is that he thought of Junmyeon, and water overflowing. He brought that into existence with his bad, wrong thoughts. He needs to figure out a way to stop it before Junmyeon gets hurt, like Chanyeol was. He needs to stop it before Junmyeon drowns.

He wanders restlessly around the dorm, looking for something bad he can fix for Junmyeon. It’s been three days since Chanyeol nearly burned. He’s better now, fever broken, almost back to normal, but Kyungsoo still hasn’t found a way to keep Junmyeon safe.

“What are you looking for?”

It’s Junmyeon himself. Kyungsoo’s head goes up. He’d been looking at his feet, slipper-clad, near-silent as he’d slowly walked along the walls in the lounge, eyes flickering from side to side as he searched for something that felt _wrong_. He hadn’t realised Junmyeon had come into the kitchen. Perhaps he’d been there all along.

Kyungsoo looks at Junmyeon. He can’t tell Junmyeon he’s trying to find something that will save him from drowning. That would sound crazy, but worse than the fear of sounding crazy is the fear of speaking the words aloud. If just thinking can call it into being, how much more power would saying it aloud have?

Junmyeon is holding a glass full of water. To Kyungsoo, his eyes look glossy. His pale skin seems to have acquired a pearly sheen, like the water inside him is starting to slowly, slowly seep its way out. Kyungsoo’s eyes fix on the glass of water in Junmyeon’s hand.

“Are you going to drink all that?”

Junmyeon looks down at the water like he’s forgotten he was holding it.

“Yeah,” he says, and gives Kyungsoo a rueful smile. “I’m hungry.”

Junmyeon is on a diet. He always diets for comebacks, even though his body fat percentage has never risen from the single digits as long as Kyungsoo has known him. One meal a day, salad and lean protein, stave off the hunger with glasses of water, until his six-pack pops and his eyes are gaunt when the makeup is removed.

“Then you should eat,” Kyungsoo says. “Don’t drink that, hyung. Eat something instead.”

He doesn’t want Junmyeon to drink that water. He’s already overflowing.

Junmyeon looks down at the glass of water. Looks back up at Kyungsoo. His smile is tired. So tired.

“Got to keep the fans happy,” he says, and lifting the glass to his lips, he gulps it down.

***

The next morning, Kyungsoo is brushing his teeth, sandwiched between Baekhyun and Jongdae as they foam and foam at their mouths, when he notices the tiny screw in the bottom right corner of the mirror is missing. He glances up to check the other three corners. There are screws there, holding the mirror to the cupboard behind it, but the fourth one, the bottom right, is gone, leaving a tiny dark hole. It looks wrong. It looks out of place. It’s bad.

Kyungsoo keeps brushing his teeth while Baekhyun and Jongdae spit simultaneously into the sink on either side of him. He keeps his eyes fixed on the bad hole. He brushes and brushes until Baekhyun and Jongdae are gone. Then he spits his mouthful, rinses, and leans closer to the hole. He presses it, feels the circular edge indent the tip of his index finger.

Kyungsoo thinks of Junmyeon and water. He lifts his finger and taps it against the hole, quite hard. It makes a satisfying bump that he can hear in the hollow of the cupboard behind the mirror. _One. Two. Three._

It takes thirteen taps of the hole for Kyungsoo’s worry about Junmyeon to fade. A breath escapes him, a little sigh. He leans against the sink and hangs his head. It is only morning, but he is already tired. But he’s relieved, too, because he’s found the way to keep Junmyeon safe.

He leaves the bathroom and goes to step over the bad line in the hallway six times. Baekhyun will be safe. Junmyeon will be safe. And soon they’ll be at the studio, and Chanyeol will be safe too.

***

They’re filming a variety show. Kyungsoo dislikes variety shows for a number of reasons, the biggest being that he’s just not good at being spontaneous. He tends to freeze, panic, when something is sprung on him. He’s not a quick thinker like Baekhyun, not able to make everyone laugh with exaggerated reactions like Chanyeol, not sharp-tongued and sharp-witted like Jongdae. In some ways he’s like Jongin, but Jongin is adorable when he’s confused, giggling nervously or pouting like a young child. Kyungsoo just goes blank, and there’s only so many times that can be played off.

The game they must play is a challenge relay. Each member must complete an individual challenge before the next member can start theirs, competing with the regular cast of the show for who can complete them all quickest. The staff have matched the games with EXO’s superpowers. They bring out two large, shallow tanks of water and place them on stands at the front of the set. The challenge is to rearrange the fridge-magnet letters lying at the bottom of the tank to form a word, but they cannot use their hands. A difficult task, to submerge your head, open your eyes underwater, figure out the anagram and rearrange the letters with nose or teeth all in one breath. Cameras are set up underneath the tanks to catch the doubtlessly hilarious view from below. It takes Kyungsoo too long to realise that it is Junmyeon who will have to complete this challenge.

Junmyeon and water. Junmyeon and drowning. Junmyeon. Drowning.

Kyungsoo barely hears his own challenge being explained (defeat the opposite team member in arm wrestling. Simple, but not necessarily easy, as Kyungsoo is not, in reality, particularly strong).

“Can we swap challenges?” he asks. Everyone looks at him, surprised. He doesn’t usually speak unprompted.

The hosts tease him about not wanting to arm wrestle, and Kyungsoo smiles mechanically and waits for a gap so he can speak again. “I want to do Junmyeon’s challenge,” he says as soon as he has a chance.

More laughter. More teasing. Probably there will be edited-in animations and speculations on why Kyungsoo wants to do Junmyeon’s challenge instead of his own. Nobody takes his request seriously.

The game starts. The thorns of Kyungsoo stab, stab, stab inside his ribs until it is all he can do not to hold his chest and grimace. Junmyeon plunges his head into his tank of water, along with the variety show cast member doing the same. Kyungsoo thinks desperately of the hole in the mirror, of his finger tapping against it. Will it be enough? What if it’s not enough? He tapped the hole thirteen times but maybe he should have done more. Maybe he should have done fourteen, or twenty, or fifty. He should have done anything, everything, to stop Junmyeon drowning in front of Kyungsoo’s eyes.

The seconds tick on and on and on. Twenty seconds. Twenty-five. How long can they hold their breaths? The cast member gives up and lifts her head out with a gasp at twenty-eight seconds, showering water everywhere as she shakes her long black hair. Beside her, Junmyeon is still going. Thirty-five seconds. Thirty-six. Thirty-seven.

Junmyeon’s knuckles are going white where he grips the table. Everyone is laughing, cheering him on. Everyone except Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo feels terror grow and grow and grow inside him, twining through all his limbs, arms legs chest throat until the clock ticks forty-nine seconds and it’s all too much and he snaps.

Kyungsoo lurches forward, too fast for Chanyeol’s reaching arm to catch him and hold him back. He crosses five steps of floor at frantic speed and, grabbing Junmyeon’s collar, hauls him up and back. They lose balance with the strength of Kyungsoo’s pull, falling to the floor in a tangle of limbs and water. Junmyeon is gasping for breath, chest heaving against Kyungsoo’s as he squints and pushes water from his face with his hands. Around him are gales of laughter, cries of dismay from the members. He’s just sabotaged his own team, but Kyungsoo feels nothing but relief, relief, as Junmyeon stares, wet and startled and very much not drowned, into his eyes.

“What did you do that for? I nearly had it!”

“I didn’t want you to drown, hyung,” Kyungsoo says. The mic picks up his words, and the laughter engulfs him like a tidal wave. As if Junmyeon would drown, rather than pull his own head up when he ran out of air. As if the staff and cast surrounding them would let that happen. How funny. How terribly, terribly funny.

***

Kyungsoo settles into his daily rhythm. He’s keeping Baekhyun, Chanyeol, Junmyeon safe. It’s not so hard. Six steps over the bad line for Baekhyun. Fifteen presses of his hand over the dance studio mirror for Chanyeol. Thirteen taps of the empty screw hole for Junmyeon. He feels anxious until he’s completed them all, but once they’re done, it’s a big relief. They’ll be safe. Safe from the bad thoughts Kyungsoo conjured into being. As long as he does this every day, they’ll all be safe.

A week later, they’re performing _Magical Thinking_ on Inkigayo, a pre-recording in the afternoon to be broadcast later that night along with _Ritual_ and _Compulsion_ , the two EDM songs from the mini-album that have proven crazy popular, and that’s when Kyungsoo finds out he was wrong.

Jongdae is halfway through a line of the bridge, building up to his belted high note just before the chorus kicks in, when he cuts off mid-word, whole body spasming in a strange, jolting jerk. He collapses, boneless, goes straight down, right in front of Kyungsoo. The studio audience cry out in shock. Kyungsoo, closest to Jongdae, falls to his knees and grabs his shoulders. Images of Chanyeol passing out return to play in front of him, though he never even saw Chanyeol fall.

“Hyung!” he cries. “Hyung! Hyung!” Panic bolts through him. The way Jongdae’s body jolted before he went down is unlike anything he’s ever seen.

Jongdae is awake. He’s grimacing, fumbling at his left ear. He yanks his in-ear out and throws it aside. “It shocked me,” he gasps, twisting around on the stage floor, scrambling to sit up. He crosses his legs and bends forward, pressing a hand flat to his ear. “It hurts.”

They’re already being surrounded by staff and scared members. Jongdae tells them his in-ear gave him an electric shock. When he’s helped to his feet he’s dizzy, unable to stand up straight without aid. Not knowing if his ear is damaged or if the electric shock disoriented him, he’s hurried off to be driven to hospital. The rest of the members are shuffled towards a dressing room. Kyungsoo feels dazed. In front of him, Chanyeol and Jongin are discussing in hushed, shocked voices the same thing happening to a girl group member from a different agency a couple of years earlier.

Kyungsoo can’t get the way Jongdae’s body jolted and went limp out of his head. He can’t get a hold of the fear twirling vines all throughout his body. Jongdae’s superpower is electricity. Jongdae just got an electric shock. That makes four members who have suffered in a way related to their power. Until now, Kyungsoo had still thought, in the sensible place below his fears, that what he was doing couldn’t _really_ be having an effect on things happening to them. It helped him feel less anxious, but surely it couldn’t _really_ be connected.

But this. This is too much. Kyungsoo didn’t have a way to keep Jongdae safe and now Jongdae is hurt. Jongdae’s ear could be damaged. He’s a singer. One of the best singers Kyungsoo knows. He can’t, _can’t_ have a damaged ear.

Is this Kyungsoo’s fault? He never thought of keeping Jongdae safe. He doesn’t remember having a bad thought about Jongdae like he’d had about Baekhyun and Junmyeon, but then, he hadn’t had a bad thought about Chanyeol either, and Chanyeol had nearly burned.

“Hyung?”

Sehun’s voice. Kyungsoo has stopped walking, stopped dead in the corridor. Only Sehun was behind him, the rest gone ahead.

Kyungsoo walks on. Sehun comes up to walk beside him. Tall, straight-backed Sehun, so cobweb-thin. Sehun is so much taller than Kyungsoo, but he looks like a breath of wind could blow him away.

Anxiety grips at Kyungsoo’s throat. Vines wend their way around his vocal cords and squeeze. No. Sehun. Not Sehun. He must not have a bad thought about Sehun.

It’s too late. The thought is here. Kyungsoo needs to find a way to save Jongdae and a way to keep Sehun safe, too. But how can he find a way here? This is the SBS building. He comes often for filming and radio shows, but not daily, and he needs to do it daily.

“Hyung? Kyungsoo-hyung? Are you okay?”

Sehun sounds scared. Kyungsoo realises that he’s leaning against the wall, turned into it, eyes closed as he rests his forehead against its cool. Sehun’s hands are fluttering around him, uncertain and delicate as moths, the veins, bones clearly visible.

“I’m okay,” Kyungsoo says, though he’s not, he’s really not. But he can’t let Sehun know that. He pushes off the wall and looks up at Sehun. So much bigger than Kyungsoo. Still so young. So confused. He hides behind his severe, handsome features, but he doesn’t understand the world. Sehun needs a lot of care. A lot of love. Sehun needs protecting from the harshness of the world. They all know that.

He takes Sehun’s hand and squeezes. Kyungsoo is strength. Earth. Roots. He will hold Sehun safe and firm. He will not let him blow away.

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s catch up to the others.”

***

As they wait in the Inkigayo dressing room for news of Jongdae and of what will be done about their performance, Kyungsoo finds a new way. He’s thinking of cracks, bad places, wrong spaces where things join or don’t quite join, where they show their meeting points and shouldn’t.

Kyungsoo has a scar along the base of his thumb. A thin white line, so faint it can’t be seen unless you know it’s there. It happened when he was a kid and climbed over a fence that had a bit of wire sticking out. Now, Kyungsoo sits in the corner of the dressing room couch, and traces his index fingernail gently up and down the scar, and thinks of Jongdae. Once, twice, three times he traces the thin white line, up and down, up and down. He keeps going until someone’s phone rings at his sixty-third tracing, and they’re told that there is no permanent damage to Jongdae’s ear, and that the initial dizziness was likely just from the shock of the incident, and that he’s going to be fine.

Kyungsoo stills his tracing. Tension leaves his body like an outwards-rushing current. Okay. He’s okay. He’s got this. Sixty-three traces of his scar for Jongdae. He can do that daily. It’s really nothing, if it keeps Jongdae safe.

With Jongdae on his way back so they can scrape in a last-minute repeat of their pre-recording of _Magical Thinking_ , Kyungsoo brings Sehun into his mind. For Sehun, he reaches down to his shoe and taps his finger back and forth over the line between the sole and the upper. Sehun needs weighing down, needs connecting to the ground. Kyungsoo thinks of this as he taps, and finds his anxiety over Sehun seeping away at tap twenty-seven.

Six steps for Baekhyun. Fifteen palm presses for Chanyeol. Thirteen taps of the mirror hole for Junmyeon. Sixty-three traces of his scar for Jongdae. Twenty-seven taps of his shoe for Sehun.

Kyungsoo can do it.

***

They’re in another interview. The mini-album is breaking records. _Compulsion_ , _Ritual_ and _Magical Thinking_ are at one, two and three in all the charts, and even the ballads _Stuck on Repeat_ and _Intrusive_ are doing better than their ballads usually do.

In front of Kyungsoo, Jongin is agitated. His chair does not move this time, but Jongin’s body moves all the more for that. He twitches at every sudden noise or burst of laughter. He fiddles rapidly with the strings hanging down from his hoodie. He jerks his head from side to side, bounces his legs, swings his feet. Kyungsoo looks at Junmyeon. Junmyeon’s palm is flat on his own jeans as he stumbles over a word. Just slightly, not enough to really matter, but enough that it shows. Kyungsoo can see how much Junmyeon wants to calm Jongin. Ground him. Hold him in the here and now.

Kyungsoo puts both hands on Jongin’s shoulders. It will be seen on camera, perhaps speculated on by fans, but better that than Jongin’s trouble being noticed. Nobody has ever minded when Kyungsoo does skinship. At least not yet. Beneath the steady pressure of hands, Jongin goes limp, loose. Kyungsoo feels his relief like a wave flowing up through his hands. He lowers his fingers from the dangling string of his hoodie and curls them around the soft toy strawberry with a face that’s been placed in his lap. The strawberries are something to do with the interview sponsors, but Kyungsoo can’t quite seem to remember the specifics. Kyungsoo was given one too, but he must have lost it at some point without realising, because now both his hands are on Jongin’s shoulders and there is no toy strawberry in them. Is that going to be a problem? Is it going to cause an issue that Kyungsoo isn’t holding his toy strawberry and is holding Jongin instead?

Beneath his hands, Jongin flickers, like a TV with a bad connection. Kyungsoo looks down at him, startled and unnerved. He presses his hands down just a little harder. He looks around to see if anyone else noticed.

Baekhyun is answering a question about the song Stuck on Repeat. Beside him, Kyungsoo sees Jongdae raise up two strawberry toys and jokingly make their faces meet in a kiss. Jongdae must have Kyungsoo’s strawberry. Kyungsoo would be relieved that he hasn’t lost his strawberry, but he’s too worried about the way Jongin flickered out and in like that. It was so brief, but Kyungsoo saw it. Kyungsoo sensed it.

What if Jongin flickers out all the way? Where would he go? How would they find him? What if they couldn’t? What then?

That evening, Kyungsoo thinks of Jongin while he quietly opens and closes his bedroom door twelve times.

***

“Why do you do that?”

Kyungsoo startles. He’s just finished keeping Baekhyun safe and walked on into the kitchen. He hadn’t noticed Minseok there, leaning against the fridge as he slowly stirs his coffee with a spoon.

“Do what?”

“You never step on the line between the hall and the lounge. You lift your legs so high to get over it, like there’s an invisible wall there or something. I’ve seen you do it loads of times. And just now, you went back and forth like that six times before coming in.” Minseok’s cat-eyes are calm as he watches Kyungsoo for a response. Like the thing he’s asking is nothing much. A slight quirk. A mere curiosity.

Kyungsoo shrugs awkwardly. “I don’t know.” He moves past Minseok to get to the rice cooker. He’d set it overnight, as he always does, so that the members who are allowed, or allow themselves, to eat carbs can have a warm breakfast.

Minseok is not one of those members. He sips his coffee - black with a sachet of Splenda. He crosses the kitchen to stand beside Kyungsoo, as Kyungsoo dishes out a bowl for himself, then a bowl for Sehun. Sehun needs to eat more, but he won’t unless Kyungsoo bullies him into it.

“If you don’t know, why do you do it?” Minseok asks.

Kyungsoo has no answer for that. He turns to get the kimchi out of the fridge, puts it and the bowls of rice on the table, yells “Sehun!”

Minseok follows him to the table and sits down next to him. Kyungsoo starts to eat his rice.

“What would happen if you didn’t do it?” Minseok just won’t drop it. “What if you stepped on the line?”

Kyungsoo’s chopsticks go still as they’re lowering back towards his bowl. He stops chewing for just a second before he starts himself up again. Baekhyun. No. Not Baekhyun.

“Nothing would happen,” he lies.

“Then why don’t you step on it?”

“Sehun, get in here!” Kyungsoo yells.

“I’m coming, okay?!” Sehun’s voice calls back from the distance, irritated.

“Why don’t you go get him?” Minseok suggests. “Go get him and step on the line when you do.”

Kyungsoo slams his chopsticks down on the table. “Jesus Christ, hyung, would you drop it already? Is it such a big deal if I don’t like to step on the line?”

Minseok looks taken aback. He lowers his head, and now Kyungsoo feels terrible. Minseok is a gentle person. Kyungsoo shouldn’t yell at him. Minseok curls his fingers around his coffee cup, like his hands are cold.

“Sorry,” he says. “I was just worried, that’s all.”

“Well, don’t,” Kyungsoo tells him, picking up his chopsticks again. “It’s not a big deal. Just forget it, okay?”

Minseok nods. He shivers convulsively, grips his coffee tighter.

“Is it just me,” he says, “or is it cold in here?”

***

Kyungsoo keeps Minseok safe by sliding his bedside table drawer open and shut ten times, every time he uses it.

***

A week later, they’re just finishing a run-through of their _Compulsion_ set in the dance studio when the manager comes in and cuts the music off. Everyone flops to the floor in exhausted relief, but Kyungsoo’s relief is soon replaced by thorns growing long and sharp inside his chest. Tomorrow they’ll perform at an event in Busan, and they have to be present from the start to watch and react to the other acts. Their regular dance rehearsal in the morning will be skipped. They’ll visit the salon instead of the studio, and be driven straight to Busan from there.

Kyungsoo looks at the bad crack in the mirror. He looks at Chanyeol. His heart starts to beat faster in his chest. If they’re not coming to the studio, he won’t be able to touch the mirror fifteen times to keep Chanyeol safe tomorrow.

He shuts his eyes. He hugs his knees. He chews at the inside of his lip. It’s different, now. It’s changed. Before, Kyungsoo thought that if he did the things, the others would be safe. Now, he thinks that if he doesn’t do the things, they won’t be. A subtle difference, but one Kyungsoo feels strongly. He’s not sure when it changed, exactly. It used to be that he was relieved when he did one of the things. Now, he’s just anxious all the time, worried about each and every one of them. Doing the things doesn’t really help with the anxiety any more. He just has to do them. He must. The burden of keeping everyone safe is all on Kyungsoo, and even though he does the things, he still has to watch the others. He has to watch them all the time. He has to make sure that Junmyeon doesn’t get too close to water, that Jongin doesn’t flicker out of existence in a fit of fretful agitation, that Minseok doesn’t get too cold, that Sehun eats enough to stop the wind from taking him. He does his best to turn light switches on and off before Jongdae can get to them, and the fact that he can’t stop Jongdae from wearing in-ears and mics plagues him. He watches Chanyeol like a hawk for any signs of fever. It’s all so stressful, and now Kyungsoo won’t be able to touch the mirror fifteen times tomorrow for Chanyeol, and he knows, he just knows that Chanyeol will burn.

“Kyungsoo?”

Baekhyun. Kyungsoo realises that he’s curled himself into a tight ball, face pressed into his knees, unable to cope with the overwhelming worry and stress of it all. Baekhyun’s hand goes onto his back. Holds there. A gentle touch. Light. “What’s wrong? Don’t you feel well?”

Kyungsoo wonders what he feels. He can’t really put a name to it. He certainly can’t explain it to Baekhyun. He would sound crazy.

Is he crazy?

He wonders. He could be crazy. All this. It doesn’t make sense. Logically it doesn’t make sense.

Maybe he really is crazy. Maybe he’s completely losing his mind. Losing his marbles. Going bananas. Full-on batshit crazy.

Raise his head. Turn it. A careful smile for Baekhyun.

“I’m fine,” he says. “Just tired.”

***

It can be a test, Kyungsoo decides. He sits in the back row of the van because he’s one of the people who doesn’t get carsick, Jongdae next to him and Minseok at the far window. He doesn’t get carsick, but all the same he feels unwell. Something’s crawling up and down him, inside and outside him, entwining through him, spiders on his skin, jitterbugs in his bones.

He can’t touch the mirror to keep Chanyeol safe today. Nobody will let him go to the studio for no reason at all, when they need to be in Busan. So he has no choice but to test it. A test of his own sanity. If Chanyeol doesn’t get sick today, then Kyungsoo is crazy. If Chanyeol does, then Kyungsoo will do anything to get back to the studio and touch the mirror fifteen times for him, so he can get better. Even if it takes throwing a tantrum at the manager. Even if it takes escaping from everyone and taking the train and a taxi all by himself. Kyungsoo will do all that.

Kyungsoo swallows and swallows at the thickness unfurling up his throat, and wonders whether he’d rather the burden of keeping his members safe truly rests on his shoulders, or if he’s truly crazy.

Two hours into the three-hour ride they pull into a quiet rest-stop so that Minseok can go to the bathroom. Kyungsoo scrambles out too. He’s heard the phrase _sick with worry_ before, but he never realised it was actually a thing, to feel physically sick just from worrying. He takes deep breaths in the parking lot and wonders whether to go to the bathroom and try to throw up. It would be better than doing it in the van, which he’s been fearing might actually happen for the last twenty minutes.

“Are you okay?” Jongdae. He speaks softly, gently, as he always does when he’s not competing with Baekhyun and Chanyeol to be heard. “You’ve been so quiet today.”

“I’m always quiet,” Kyungsoo mumbles.

“Not this quiet.” Jongdae says. He hesitates, peering carefully into Kyungsoo’s face. “You’re super pale.”

“I’ve been feeling a bit carsick,” Kyungsoo admits, more to get Jongdae off his back than anything else. He turns around and looks for Chanyeol. He hasn’t gotten out of the van, engrossed in some game he’s playing on his phone. Baekhyun is asleep against his shoulder, hadn’t even woken when the van stopped.

Chanyeol looks fine so far. He’s still okay.

“Oh, that sucks. We should let you sit in the front,” Jongdae says, already hurrying back to the van to ask some of the others to switch places. Kyungsoo’s usual reaction would be to stop him. He hates bothering people and making them change things just because of him, and he doesn’t think sitting in the front is going to help anyway, but he’s too caught up in his worry about Chanyeol to have enough space left for all that. So before long he finds himself in the front seat next to the manager, plastic bag on his lap in case of emergencies, helpfully provided by Jongin whose place he’s taken. It should be humiliating, but again, Kyungsoo is too worried about Chanyeol to care.

He tries to soothe himself. He does the things he can. Jongdae, he can keep safe. Fingernail back and forth along his scar. Sehun, too, he can protect. Tap, tap between the sole and upper of his shoe. He’s already done them today, but doing them again can’t hurt. He misses the sidelong glances of the manager as he brings his feet up onto the car seat so that he can more easily tap his shoe, over and over again. He sees a place on the door handle where a piece of trimming meets another shade of plastic. It looks wrong to him, so he lets his finger jump back and forth over that too. It doesn’t belong to anyone, this new thing. Everyone already has their own and he can’t change that, but maybe if he does it enough, maybe somehow he can make it have an effect on Chanyeol. He keeps Chanyeol in his mind and jumps his fingers back and forth, a hundred, two hundred, three hundred times, until the van pulls up at the venue and everyone wakes up and scrambles out.

***

EXO are a top tier act, probably the biggest name of the gathered performers. Kyungsoo can’t remember what the event is. Award ceremony? Charity gig? Music festival? He can’t find the memory among the tangle of his thoughts. Whatever it is, it’s something fairly big, because he recognizes other big names too, interspersed among the unknown rookie groups that will perform earlier in the programme. Infinite are seated at the table to their left. To their right are iKon. EXO’s table is front and centre. Cameras will be on them at all times, even when the other acts are performing.

They’ve been provided with bowls of wrapped snacks and bottles of water. Kyungsoo cannot eat or drink, but he takes a packet of crackers and puts it into Sehun’s hand. Sehun accepts it without comment, but doesn’t open it. Kyungsoo wants to nudge him, because despite all his efforts Sehun looks thinner than ever, temples hollow where the light and shadow falls across his face, wrists fragile where they slip out from the cuffs of his shirt. If Kyungsoo isn’t careful, the wind will take him. But he’s tapped his shoe for Sehun many times today. He’s more worried about Chanyeol. Sehun will be okay today, even if he doesn’t eat the crackers. Chanyeol…

Chanyeol is smiling, face animated, eyes bright. He’s clapping enthusiastically along to the rookie girl group up on the stage, even though they’re singing a little off-key and the melody is generic at best, boring if Kyungsoo is honest. Kyungsoo sees the gleam of sweat at his temples. Is it hot in here? Kyungsoo does not feel hot. He looks at Minseok. Minseok is wearing his jacket, the only one of them still doing so, everyone else having gone down to their white shirts when they arrived. Is Minseok cold? If Minseok and Chanyeol sat together, pressed together, held each other close, would Minseok’s ice counteract Chanyeol’s burning?

Kyungsoo rolls a bottle of water across the table. Chanyeol doesn’t notice, but Baekhyun, sitting next to him, does. He catches the bottle before it rolls off and looks questioningly at Kyungsoo. Kyungsoo jerks his head at Chanyeol. Baekhyun looks at Chanyeol.

The song ends and Chanyeol gives a whoop that resonates around the large indoor space. The young girls up on stage push sweaty hair from their eyes, and smile, and bow, and smile again.

Baekhyun tugs at Chanyeol’s arm, puts the water bottle into his hand. Kyungsoo watches as Chanyeol opens it and drinks. He wishes he wasn’t right across the table. He needs to be closer to Chanyeol, so he can keep an eye on him.

Everyone’s attention is on the stage as iKon get up, the first famous act to perform. Kyungsoo leans towards Sehun.

“Swap places with me.”

Sehun looks puzzled, but obeys, switching with him so that now Kyungsoo is next to Baekhyun. He’d ask Baekhyun to switch places too, but now iKon are starting and it would be too rude. He’ll have to wait.

He pretends to keep his attention on the stage while really watching Chanyeol from the corners of his eyes. He’s definitely sweating. Baekhyun isn’t sweating. Nor is Kyungsoo. Or Sehun. But Chanyeol does tend to run hotter naturally. It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t necessarily mean…

iKon finish. Baekhyun leans towards Chanyeol before Kyungsoo can ask him to switch places. Chanyeol looks at Baekhyun, and Baekhyun reaches up to place the back of his hand to Chanyeol’s forehead.

“Oh, man,” Baekhyun says, gentle, worried. “Chanyeol, you’re burning up.”

All the sound sucks out of the world. Kyungsoo feels everything go surreal, distant in the draining silence. His heart stops beating in his chest, and then starts up again, way too fast. The noise of the theatre comes flooding back in a crashing tidal-wave rush, thunders down on top of him, a tsunami of panic and fear and desperation. It’s true. It’s all true. Kyungsoo isn’t crazy. Chanyeol is burning up and it’s all Kyungsoo’s fault.

He’s on his feet and lurching, stumbling towards the nearest side door. The exit sign glows green like a beacon, and he pushes past the security guards and into the cold night air, stumbling again as it hits him like a wall. He staggers three steps, falls to his knees, and vomits onto the black asphalt.

“Kyungsoo!”

Someone has followed him. Voices. A cold hand on his arm. Too cold. Kyungsoo coughs, spits onto the ground. Tries to get up. Everything spins.

“Whoa, take it easy.” Minseok’s voice. He’s on his knees beside Kyungsoo. It is his hand gripping Kyungsoo’s arm. His cold, cold hand.

It’s cold out here. Minseok shouldn’t be out here. He’ll get too cold. He’ll freeze.

“Hyung,” Kyungsoo gasps dizzily. “Get back inside, go -”

“Kyungsoo,” says Baekhyun. When did he get here? “Geez, man, this isn’t just carsickness. Why didn’t you say you were feeling bad?”

“Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo says. He tries to get up again. It goes better this time. Baekhyun and Minseok help him to his feet. “I have to go back. I have to go to the studio -” he tries to pull away from them. “Let me go!”

“You can’t,” Baekhyun grips him harder. “Kyungsoo, stop it! Stop it, calm down. You’re scaring me, please, try to breathe.”

“Why do you need to go to the studio?” Minseok asks. “It’s three hours away. We’re on in fifteen minutes.”

“I have to,” Kyungsoo cries, and now there are tears on his cheeks, though when he started crying he doesn’t know. “You don’t understand! I have to go!”

“Make us understand, then,” Baekhyun says urgently. “Tell us what’s wrong.”

“It’s Chanyeol,” Kyungsoo says. “He’s burning up.” He stares between them, back and forth. “He’s _burning up_ , don’t you see?”

“He’s got another fever,” Baekhyun says uncertainly, “but he’ll be okay, Kyungsoo, and you’re sick too, so -”

“No, I’m not.” Kyungsoo tries again to wrench out of their hold. He could escape just from Baekhyun, perhaps, but Minseok is too strong.

“Kyungsoo, tell us what’s happening,” Minseok says. He’s shivering. He’s going to freeze. Kyungsoo wants to scream. This is all his fault. Everything is all his fault. They need to let him go!

“The mirror in the studio,” he says. His words stumble over each other in his need to make them see. “I need to go there. I need to go there right now so that Chanyeol will stop burning.”

“What are you talking about?” cries Baekhyun, but Minseok shushes him.

“Why will the mirror stop him burning?”

“I have to touch the mirror. You don’t understand. I couldn’t touch the mirror for him today and now he’s burning. Hyung, I have to go, I have to…” his words are escaping him, cracking into tears. It’s all gone wrong. How can he get back to the studio now? It’ll take hours. He’ll be too late.

Sobs consume him. His knees buckle. He folds to the ground, Baekhyun and Minseok gripping him, controlling his fall.

“Go back inside, hyung,” he sobs to Minseok. “Please. You’ll freeze. You’ll freeze to death, hyung, please go back in. Please. Please.”

“This isn't right,” Baekhyun’s voice says. Not to Kyungsoo. To Minseok. He sounds scared. Shaken. “Something’s wrong with him, hyung...”

“Go get the manager,” says Minseok, and Kyungsoo hears Baekhyun stand up and run back into the building.

“Kyungsoo.” Minseok is gripping both his arms, kneeling before him on the cold, hard ground. Kyungsoo stares desperately into Minseok’s eyes.

“Hyung,” he says, “it’s too cold for you out here, you’re _cold as ice_ , hyung, don’t you see -”

“I’m fine,” Minseok says. “Kyungsoo, listen to me. Touching the mirror doesn’t relate to Chanyeol’s fever. It’s a coincidence. It isn’t you.”

“But it is,” Kyungsoo chokes out. “It keeps on happening. I know it sounds crazy. I know you think I’m insane, but it keeps on happening and the only way I can stop it is to…”

“Kyungsoo,” Minseok says. “I saw you. You know I saw you. Touching the mirror in the studio is for Chanyeol, right? What about stepping over the line in the dorm? Is that for someone too?”

“It’s for Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo whispers. “If I don’t step over the bad line, the darkness will get him.”

Minseok’s calm expression cracks. It crumbles off his face into dust, and underneath it there is nothing but raw, crude worry. An open gash that Kyungsoo feels all the pain of. They look at each other, and Kyungsoo feels like he’s something else. Something different. Someone else’s flesh clinging to his bones, someone else’s mind occupying his skull. Something all gone wrong.

Minseok scrambles forward on his knees and hugs him tight. Kyungsoo feels barren. The thorns are gone, the choking leaves, leaving him a desert inside, an area where nothing can ever grow. Minseok is silent. He’s silent and he breathes steadily and deeply, and he feels so calm, but he holds Kyungsoo so tight. He grips Kyungsoo as if Kyungsoo will fall apart if Minseok doesn’t hold him together.

“Kyungsoo,” he says. His voice is wavering. Like it can’t properly contain the sounds, the meaning. He makes a gentle rocking motion, as if to lull Kyungsoo, like a small child.

“It’s real, hyung,” Kyungsoo whispers. The barrenness is expanding inside him. He’s nothing but a vast, empty plain of exhaustion. “I know you don’t believe me but I have to do the things. All of them. There’s one for everyone and I have to do them all. I don’t want to do them but I have to. I have to keep everyone safe.”

“Alright, Kyungsoo. I know,” says Minseok, but his voice sounds broken, and Kyungsoo knows it’s a lie.

Baekhyun is back, the manager with him. Kyungsoo doesn’t know what to do any more. The world is spinning, spinning, and he closes his eyes against it all, against the awfulness and terror. They’ll never understand. They’ll never believe. Despair claws at his bones and drags him under. He loses awareness of the cold night, of Minseok’s arms around him, of Baekhyun calling his name.

***

They give Kyungsoo’s illness a name. A neat, tidy label, all wrapped up in a box, with a pretty little bow on top. Kyungsoo gets a therapist. He gets medication. He goes to his therapist every week, and takes his medication. He’s obedient. Quiet. No need to make a fuss. The others get used to it soon enough. It becomes part of the routine.

It’s all okay, because every day, Kyungsoo performs his rituals, and keeps the terror and the madness of the world at bay.

**Author's Note:**

> The title, Magical Thinking, is the term in psychology for the belief that one’s ideas, thoughts, actions, words, or use of symbols can influence the course of events in the material world. This is often (but not always) a feature of OCD, where the person engages in rituals or compulsions to quiet the obsessive thoughts they experience. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the story. Thank you for reading! xxx Michan


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